Why Should A Maintenance Plan Change?

A maintenance plan covers the different types of corrective and preventive maintenance you do on different equipment and facilities. The plan could be something written down or stored in your maintenance management software. Every so often, it’s important as a maintenance planner to check your maintenance plan to see if it’s really doing the job you need it to do. Do you know if your department is overstretched? Is your equipment not working as it should? Are you spending more than you should? How would you rate your current plan right now?

Red flags may signal that it may be time to evaluate your maintenance plan and make some changes. Let us look at six signs it’s time to change your maintenance plan:

1. Your plan is not accounting for benefits from technology.

Can you to send out work orders & receive updates by text/ email? Can you receive maintenance work requests by text/ email? If not, you’re missing out on technicians being more effective on the work-site. When they can access their work orders in the field, they will be less mistakes and a faster turn-around. Are you making full use of the features offered in your maintenance program? For example keeping track of maintenance inventory & supplies is quite important. Inventory costs are one of the significant sources of maintenance department expenses. Are you using the software reports to identify equipment that may need to be replaced?

2. Is your maintenance budget growing without a good reason?

If your maintenance related expenses are growing but you have not really added more assets to maintain, it can be a cause for concern. Being able to save or reduce expense in a maintenance budget can have big impacts on profitability. For example in quite a few manufacturing plants the maintenance budget exceeds annual net profit. According to a report by E.I. DuPont de Nemours Co., the biggest controllable expense in a manufacturing facility is maintenance. So take a good look at the final numbers. If you are overstretched, create a strategy for cost-reduction.

3. You are having trouble tracking actual costs and labor hours spent on work order vs. estimated values

When you have a large maintenance department, you may have hundreds of work orders coming in each month. It can be challenging to keep up with material and labor overruns. If you are having trouble tracking these, you may experience some budget issues and it may be time to change your maintenance plan. A CMMS software program can help you keep track of cost and labor overruns. It can also help you keep tabs on the length of time it’s taking for maintenance to perform certain tasks. If it’s taking longer than the actual work order calls for, it raises a red flag. Your technicians may not be trained properly or the estimated time required for the maintenance task may be off.

4. Your maintenance plan health is getting worse

You create a maintenance plan that you want to perform optimally. How is the actual health of your plan? You may have a great plan. However, if the plan has some design issues or you are not implementing it to meet goals, it’s time to take a good look at it. Not sure how to find the health of your plan? See Key Maintenance Management Statistics For Maintenance Planners to get an idea of what information to collect.

5. You are getting many complaints from customers

Good customer service is important in any industry. Maintenance managers should have a good idea of the level of satisfaction internal or external customers have with the maintenance department. Your customers should feel that maintenance operations are running smoothly and any maintenance requests they make are being taken care of. Do you and your team really listen to what the customer is saying? How are you handling customers even when you know they are not right? Are many complaints coming in? How do you keep track of what the complaints are? Are complaints discussed in your regular meetings? Maintaining a good reputation for customer service is important. Regularly gauge your performance and make any necessary changes to improve customer satisfaction.

6. Unexpected equipment failure or part replacement

If you are often dealing with equipment failures or parts replacement earlier than expected, you may need to change your audit work procedure. You should review what work has been done. Also look at the history reports for failure and repairs. If you are doing this manually it can be challenging. A CMMS software package can assist you in regular audits and getting the kind of information you need.

Based on these six signs, how is your maintenance plan doing? Regular audits will help you recognize when it’s time to change aspects of your maintenance plan.

Evaluate Your Maintenance Plan With These Maintenance Metrics

Your maintenance management program can provide useful metrics that can help you with a more detailed evaluation of your plan. Our guide Key Maintenance Management Metrics for Maintenance Planners has more information on these metrics.